


Home for the Holidays

by rockykelboa



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Closeted Character, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Returning Home, Strangers, Thanksgiving, Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:20:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27768940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockykelboa/pseuds/rockykelboa
Summary: My first Kakavege thingy, written for Dungeon Drabble Night. Kind of inspired by Trains, Planes & Automobiles and 36 hours I spent stuck at JFK over the holidays a few years ago. Might add some more later!Prompts were: autumn, harvest, tradition, get-together, feast, and carve.
Relationships: Son Goku/Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27
Collections: Dungeon Drabble Night





	1. Consolation

Vegeta stared out the little porthole onto the tarmac, watching a plane crawl slowly up to the next gate. A patchwork of snow still glittered between the lanes of the runways, but the weather had, for the most part, returned to normal. He folded a thin autumn jacket and tucked it neatly beneath the seat. 

So far so good. With any luck, three hours from now, he’d be hailing a cab. He’d spend the ride trying to tune out the chatter of an overly-friendly driver, trying to check his anxiety as the city lights receded behind them, and the orange glow of a harvest moon lifted at the barren horizon. The only thing worse than cross-country travel on the busiest day of the year was the destination. Fuck, he hated going home.

Every year was the same tradition—the same food, the same conversations, the same accruing sense of failure. No change in his job title meant he lacked drive, that he needed to buckle down. While a promotion meant he was working too hard when he should be focused on starting a family. Every year, he was reminded that his father had built two separate ventures from scratch, bought a house, got married and had two kids before thirty. 

Vegeta was now thirty-two. His one-bedroom apartment in New York City had the same square footage as his childhood bedroom, and on the marriage front… 

“Hey! Small world,” a bright, recognizable voice pulled him from his thoughts. Vegeta cringed as he looked up at the human disaster that he’d had the misfortune of following through security. 

The moron broke every rule of travel, enforceable and courteous alike. His carry on luggage was ripping at the seams, overstuffed with full-sized toiletries and half-drunk sodas that had to be tossed. His PS4 Pro took an eternity to unearth from beneath his laundry and a Costco-level feast of chips and candy. Big Destiny raid, he’d explained, sheepishly rubbing the back of his nappy hair instead of unlacing his sneakers. The flight was boarding by the time they’d cleared the scanners. 

“Guess we get to sit together.”

“Yay…” Vegeta droned. 

It seemed the fool was as innocent as he was dense. Unable to discern the sarcasm in Vegeta’s tone, he smiled. The sunshiny grin that carved across his face launched Vegeta’s stomach suddenly into the air. He quickly averted his gaze back to the windows. 

The plane rumbled to life as the passenger beside him clumsily settled in the small seat. Knocking knees and elbows, Vegeta was, for the first time, thankful to be stuffed back in coach. The rest of the holiday would be hell guaranteed. But the next three hours spent crammed up against a dimple-faced stranger that lacked awareness for personal space might make it somewhat bearable.


	2. Discomfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have an idea for this story. Until I figure the whole thing out, here's a chaser!

Goku frowned at the seatbelt light overhead with some regret. It felt like hours had passed since they’d pulled away from the gate to join the long line of planes on the taxiway. If they didn’t take off soon, he might be forced to throw his coat over his lap and repurpose a Gatorade bottle into a urinal. Somehow that seemed less terrifying than being yelled at by the hotheaded flight attendant. 

What was the harm in using the bathroom? He couldn’t trip over himself if he tried when the plane was creeping along at a pace his grandpa could’ve lapped a dozen times on his walker.

As Goku shut his eyes, trying desperately to put his mind on anything but his bladder, he felt the voice of the passenger beside him roil the air. Rich and reverberating, he sounded like he belonged on the radio, or better yet, on Twitch as an ASMR streamer that could broadcast both his face and grumblings. The guy was swelteringly good looking. He had the dark, angled features of a supervillain that was begging to trade teams. In real life, the realm where dreams went to die, the guy served as a poignant reminder of the clumsy, messy failures Goku’s life had come to embody with all the less than subtle complaints he issued behind him in the security line. 

“Helloo?”

“What?” Goku peeked open an eye, still committed to pouting.

The guy’s scowl widened into a look of implausible wonder as he shook his head. “The hell is wrong with you?” 

“Whaddya mean?” There was plenty wrong with him, enough to require specifics. Wasn't surprising the stranger had a few already in mind.

“Are you Fred Flintstone? You trying to pedal us off the ground?”

“Who?”

His hand clapped down on Goku’s bouncing knee to freeze it in place. Maybe his brain froze too, at least for a few blissful seconds before it caught up to his mouth that began to blather on in a way that grated most people's nerves.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to annoy ya. It’s just… I wasn’t expectin’ to be sittin’ here so long... I just... I um– I kinda have to pee.”

“There’s at least four bathrooms on this plane.”

“Yeah, but…” Goku side-eyed the flight attendant that patrolled back toward them down the aisle.

“Seriously? You’re afraid of her?”

“A little…” Who wouldn’t be? The slogans from the airline's inflight magazine — _Your comfort, our business. Your happiness, our satisfaction_ — all read like satire when their ambassador was rattling her prescription medication in the face of a crying infant, charging them with aiding and abetting her migraine.

The passenger’s palm released Goku’s leg to snatch his ticket from the seat pocket. “Kakarot Son… Tell you what. How about I distract the scary blue-haired warden so you can scamper to the potty?”

“Distract her how?”

A merciless smile spread beneath the man’s sculpted cheeks. 

Ah... of course. He belonged to the big club. Regardless if the odds of a made-for-tv meet cute on an airplane were hundred-to-one, to say Goku wasn’t disappointed to learn the dark-eyed basso beside him was a straight zero, disqualified from even harmlessly entertaining false hopes through a three hour flight would be a lie. 

As the attendant approached, he squeezed Goku’s leg again and demanded him to follow his lead, a mere second before he suddenly hurled himself across Goku’s lap. He whipped upright with his palm clapped over his mouth. Frantically, he unbuckled his seatbelt. Muffled shouts escaped from behind his palm that Goku failed to immediately interpret. Not until his row-mate had clamored right over him, careful to avoid his bladder, then took off at a sprint down the aisle, did Goku understand the plot. Shit, he almost believed him same as the attendant that chased after him in awkward little steps, confined by a pencil skirt and high heels. 

The plan was foolproof save for one small catch: the restrooms he baited the woman to stand outside, begging to lend her assistance if he would just unlock the door, were the only ones on this side of the curtain.... Perfect.


	3. Serious Discomfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of know where this is headed! ayyeee!

Vegeta smirked and half-laughed as he unzipped his pants and squared up before the toilet. That was too easy. He didn’t know what kind of upbringing would make a grown man rather piss himself than suffer a little public scolding. If he had to guess, Kakarot’s nanny was invented by Mattel as some lifesize draconian Barbie. 

Kakarot was right about one thing: the stewardess was an insufferable boobjob, rapping and chattering incessantly on the other side of the door. She hadn’t let up for a second, and frankly, was giving his dick stagefright.

“Sir, if you’re ill, you really ought to let me–”

“Fucking hell woman, leave me alone! I can hold my own hair!” 

… Nothing? No comeback? Not a word? … Vegeta swore he heard her trot away. Good riddance, at least now he could pee in priv– _ah fuck!_ The plane made a hard left turn, rocking his balance to shoot piss across his boot. 

That goddamn bitch was probably chuckling herself into the safety of her harness. He had to admit, it’d be one helluva joke. He’d have done the same in her position if getting spanked by the FAA and collecting unemployment were the worst consequences of abandoning a smartass passenger in a bathroom during takeoff. 

As the bathroom hijacker, particularly one with Vegeta’s penchant for poetic misfortune, the shallow little toilet would upchuck his piss, spray it right at him as the plane launched off the ground. Hurriedly, he flushed and zipped and unlatched the door.

Discovering the flight attendant still waiting for him on the other side came as a disappointment. Thankfully, the phone that was tucked beneath her ear had a short leash, yet somehow a concussion seemed oddly more desirable than stepping onto the set of a Britney Spears music video, watching the woman trace her tongue across her upper lip and wink. Vegeta almost got his wish, two seconds too late. The plane suddenly stopped, pitching him into the door of the opposite restroom. 

In much the same fashion as his journey down the aisle, he scampered back up to find his seat. A collective murmur rose through the cabin that he was relieved had nothing to do with himself or the ill-advised ploy he’d committed to… egh… to force the adorable idiot seated beside him into his debt? 

“Hi!” piped the adorable idiot. 

“How are you back before me?” As the question left his mouth and Kakarot shrugged, Vegeta realized he didn’t care, so long as he could curl up in the safety of his seat before the stewardess caught up to him. Imagining the scenario was enough to make him jumpy. He shuddered as he spun around, fearing she might pop-up behind him and scutter over his skin like all the cockroaches the good-for-nothing cat he’d given squatting rights to in his apartment ought to take care of. The dumb freeloader never held up its end of the bargain. It failed to murder, much less chase away more than a dust bunny composed of its own fur. 

“Get up! Let me in!” Vegeta said as the woman hung up the phone and locked her eyes back on him, if they had ever left.

Kakarot shifted awkwardly and looked away, mumbling under his breath, “The seatbelt light’s on.”

“Oh my god!” Vegeta cried. The exclamation came off a little more queenly than he intended, and if he’d had the time, he’d have covered it with a death threat, but the vulgar girl was closing in. Vegeta swung a leg over Kakarot’s lap, briefly trapping the fool face-to-face with a glare that could give the puppy nightmares before he shoved off into seat. 

Mission accomplished, he thought, as Kakarot’s face turned red as a plumb. Then, something solid thudded against Vegeta’s foot.

“Hi!” Vegeta heard the stewardess’ chirp as he bent to retrieve the idiot’s sports drink. “Just checking on your friend.”

“My friend... Oh! Yeah he’s super nauseating.”

Good fucking god! It was warm! 

“Goddammit!” Vegeta dropped the bottle and shot upright, nailing his head on the seat in front of him in the process. Talk about fucking nauseating, if he wasn’t sick before, he certainly was now as he stared, horrified, into his palm. 

“Dramamine is baby-grade. I have the good stuff in the back,” asserted the woman. She lurched across Kakarot to grab Vegeta’s soiled hand and tried to pull him up. 

“Actually, he’s allergic to most stuff.” Kakarot pried Vegeta’s fingers from the stewardess’s claws and twined them with his own. “Aren’t ya… uh, dear?” 

Even for an adorable idiot, the utter stupidity of his gambit wasn’t the kind of thing Vegeta was prepared to endure. For a moment, he sat suspended in a state of shock. All the blood pumping between his ears congealed and left them dully ringing. He glanced at the row across the aisle, then at at the ones ahead and behind with a baseless paranoia: that another passenger on this godforsaken flight might hail from the same small stain on the earth as himself. As that thought finally wormed through the sludge to reanimate his limbs, Vegeta’s hand recoiled faster than a snapped high-tension spring. 

He refitted his attention on the girl, who now seemed less like a threat than a cover. “Are we talking prescription tranquilizers? ‘Cause I will– Ach! Fuck!” Kakarot drove his heel into the top of his foot.

“He’s kidding.”

“Ohmygod, you guys are so cute! You’re like an old married couple,” the loudmouth woman announced to what felt like a source group whose opinions she didn’t care to acknowledge.

“Thanks, we’re working on it.” 

Good gods he was doing it too.

“You’re a fucking lunatic,” Vegeta found his voice to pipe up.

“See what I mean?” Kakarot tore his garbage smile from the woman to toss that trash on him. Vegeta refused to entertain it. 

“Woman, please tell me we’re leaving the ground soon.”

With cloying grin, the stewardess leaned over them. “Might wanna strap in boys. We’ll be stuck here all night while they pretend to tinker with the engine to avoid buying y’all hotel rooms. This plane isn’t gonna fly.”

Perfect. If faking sick backfired, Vegeta wondered how his nauseating performance would play if he actually vomited. Right now, he’d give his left nut if it meant he could disembark on the J-Train and, in just over an hour, spend Christmas Eve on his couch sharing Pad Thai with a fucking cat.


End file.
